For stress-free wedding switch to e-Band Baaja Baaraat

New Delhi: Are you running helter-skelter looking for a flower vendor, photographer, caterer, venue and parlour for an upcoming wedding in your family? Take a breather, and go stress-free thanks to an online portal.

OurVivaha.com, launched in May, provides an e-platform to effectively organize weddings. It's like an e-Band Baaja Baaraat which can help you save around 25 percent of the wedding cost, says founder Shyam Velumani.

"Our vision is to make weddings affordable and stress-free. We are like the 'e-Band Baaja Baaraat'," Velumani said.

"There were so many platforms for people to find their match, but after they get a match, a lot of them are left blank on what to do next - which vendor they should approach, and so on. We tried addressing this conundrum using our platform," he added.

The website has divisions which aid consumers in planning a 'dream wedding'.

It provides customized solutions for cost effective weddings - vendor database, budget planner, a video message service... so on and so forth.

In times when the "recession proof" wedding industry, a "highly unorganized sector", is booming, Velumani saw a "massive opportunity" for a one-stop solution like OurVivaha.com.

And this, especially for "nuclear families and youngsters who need such online platform to realize their 'dream marriage'", he said.

So how does OurVivaha.com work?

"Couples can either drop a message on our homepage or email us. Our wedding experts then fix up an appointment with them," said Velumani.

"Many couples do not know what their budget should be or how much to spend on each category. Our experts propose to them the budget they should spend and which particular vendor falls in that budget range," he said, adding that the first wedding consultation is free of cost.

Once the customers decide to use their services, they are charged a fee.

"If they require us to execute the wedding, our services start from as low as Rs.50,000," said Velumani, whose team is currently working on some upcoming high budget weddings for up to Rs.2.5 crore.

The website currently has around 4,000 registered users and Velumani says the team has so far advised 70 couples in the Delhi-NCR region.

He agrees that films like "Hum Tum" and "Band Baaja Baaraat" promoted the idea of wedding planners in real life.

"Films are a great way to pass on the message. 'Band Baaja Baaraat' created a whole new expectation from the wedding planning industry to make weddings more fun. This certainly increased the aspiration level of people to have a wedding planner do the execution," Velumani said.

However, he says, "still a lot of people are reluctant as they are scared that wedding planners will charge a huge chunk of fee."